Produced and Directed by Sam Pollard
**** (four stars)
I have an experiment that I am asking you to undertake.
I am asking you to think about any times during your lives in which you may have visited an art museum. Simply casual visits. Not for research or anything. A regular outing. Now...when going to an art museum, how many works do you remember seeing that were created by Black artists and then, please think to when was the very first time you ever saw work created by a Black artist? Nothing that you necessarily had to seek for. But, what was just...present.
Additionally, there is this: One can easily go through life never having set foot within an art museum and still be aware of the existence of Monet. Or Leonardo da Vinci. Picasso. Vincent van Gogh. Yet, are you able to remember when you became aware of a Black artist of some prominence? Not in a class or through a lesson. But through the osmosis of just living life in America, an America dominated by Whiteness.
This particular experiment is one I utilized upon myself as I began watching Sam Pollard's brilliant, beautiful documentary "Black Art: In The Absence Of Light," and truthfully, I honestly could not devise an answer. But what I did discover through viewing was a greater window not only into the art world, and a selection of the Black artists, historians, dealers and collectors who populate that world. Pollard's film delivered unto me a greater view of Blackness itself, making his work function just as highly as many of my favorite documentaries: a film that transcends its subject matter and extends itself into themes grander and more encompassing to the human experience overall.
Utilizing the landmark 1976 exhibition Two Centuries of Black American Art, as curated by the late artist/scholar David Driskell as a leaping off point as well as a bookend, Sam Pollard's "Black Art: In The Absence Of Light" approaches to primarily accomplish what Driskell achieved 45 years ago: to honor the work and legacies of Black artists and therefore, educate the public at large to the existence of these Black artists and their legacies in order to widen the perception, conversation and appreciation of the art world in its entirety.
Including interviews with David Driskell, both archived and conducted especially for this film before his passing on April 1, 2020 due to complications from COVID-19, Pollard's film introduces us to Black artists from before, during, afterwards, and including those who were ultimately inspired by Driskell's watershed exhibit.
While every figure Pollard presents expands the mosaic of the art world as a whole, delving into each artist's signature style and process also expanded the nature and purpose of each artist's creative process as well.
We meet Radcliffe Bailey (painter, sculptor, mixed media artist), who utilized 500 discarded piano keys and constructed a sculpture representing the Middle Passage. We are also introduced to both Kehinde Wiley (portrait painter) and Amy Sherald (painter), each of whom were graced with the privilege and responsibility of creating portraits of President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama.
The room sized Black silhouette paper artwork of Kara Walker (painter, print maker, filmmaker, installation artist, Professor) showcases an artistic honesty about the Black experience through a grim surrealism that is perceived as being confrontational and polarizing even among Black audiences, some of whom characterize Walker's work as being exploitative while others champion the rightfulness of its often disturbing nature.
And then, we also are presented with the purposefully representational art of Kerry James Marshall (painter/Professor) whose own work was conceived through his being inspired by the representational work of Charles White (painter, visual artist), as well as being a reaction to the reality that when visiting art museums, it is rare to see Black people in pictures let alone seeing images of Black artists creating art. Furthermore, Marshall's process fully challenges and therefore, upends the nature of what colors actually are. As he states pointedly, "Black is not the absence of color. Black is particular kinds of color." Meaning that with the three bases of Black (Ivory, Carbon and Mars) that one could purchase at an art store, a full spectrum of colors could be created from the base of blackness. For me, a nearly lifelong perception of what Black is was shattered, altered and re-shaped into what Black can be.
With regards to the necessity of Black artists and Black art being firmly recognized as being essential pieces of the American canon--for as David Driskell expressed with finality, "The American canon is not complete without it."--Pollard's film wisely delves deeper into the nature of inclusion, from the museums that are reluctant to showcase Black artists to tensions within the very groups that are already marginalized.
When the film turns its attention to Faith Ringgold (painter, writer, mixed media sculptor, performance artist), an unapologetic Feminist and activist, whose refusal, despite her immense artistic skill and creativity, from being admitted into The Spiral, a New York based collective of African-American artists during the 1960's, the questions raised are palpable. Who decides who gets to be invited into or excluded from the canon of significant Black art? Who gets to decide what is significant Black art and what isn't?
From matters of inclusion, we reach the topic of diversity within Black art and the art world in full, from the need for Black curators, Black museums, Black art journalists and critics and even further, prominent Black art collectors, individuals, like Swizz Beatz for instance, who can assist to raise the profile of Black artists within society, which even more crucially, helps us to elevate each other. From elevation, we are then able to inspire, just as witnessed by the image of then 2 year old Parker Curry gazing in awe at the portrait of Michelle Obama. For through the art that arrives from Black artists, we, as Black people, have the opportunity to feel seen in spaces where we are typically not. And if we are able to see ourselves and each other here, then we can be inspired to be seen and recognized everywhere.
For a film that runs just a hair under 90 minutes, Sam Pollard's "Black Art: In The Absence Of Light" covers a tremendous amount of material with an energetic, fully involving grace that results in an engrossing experience. Pollard's warmly provocative style showcases every artist in succinct detail yet as rich and complex as the art they each create. In fact, so engaging all of the artists are as interview subjects, conversationalists as well as creative figures, Pollard could have easily helmed completely individualized documentary films for each person.
Most urgently, yet gently so, Pollard's film delivered one revelation after another, from ones of the nature like the aforementioned fallacy of Black being the absence of color but revelations that for me, proved themselves to being more primal. Some of them were more "a ha" moments certainly. But, what I am speaking of are the deeply significant revelations, those that began with feelings of sadness, incredulity and even a taste of self-directed anger or disappointment, which then ultimately built themselves upwards towards a sense of validation and liberation.
At this time, I wish to return to the experiment I asked of you to undertake at the outset of this posting. It was during a sequence filmed at the Art Institute of Chicago when I forced myself to seriously think back to the times when I ventured to art museums during my life. I think to the times as a child and teenager, when I went to the Art Institute, either with family or on school field trips. I think of the times as an adult, going to the same museum, or visiting Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art in the early 1990's as well as copious trips to the Chazen Museum of Art in Madison, WI, a location where I have taken children on several school aged field trips over the years. And it was here, a mere 12 minutes into the film as I watched and reminisced, it hit me how much that I had taken at face value and therefore, taken for granted that I really had not seen representations of myself within the art presented.
I concede that maybe I did see some examples but do not remember. And yes, there is certainly Chicago's DuSable Museum. Yet as that location is not exclusively an art museum and is considerably more of a historical museum, I tend to keep each specific museum separate in my brain...which in and of itself, also may be indicative of the larger and more seriously problematic issue. I, as an African American living in a society purposefully designed for Whiteness, had been conditioned to not readily see examples of myself and in doing so, to not even question our absence.
To think about it within this moment, the feeling is more than insidious as it stretches to every fabric of American society but keeping strictly to the medium of the arts, it was the same for television and the movies regarding for whom stories were told and centered around and who had been given access to make them. Even within literature, if not fully described by the author suggesting otherwise, when visualizing characters, my brain would default to imagining, seeing Whiteness. Unless given permission, representations of Blackness were not included and if invited, it was through a more marginalized capacity, always reminding me that I am part of a world for White people rather than being a Black person in a world for everyone.
By being marginalized at best and ignored at worst, I felt ashamed that I did not know of really any of the figures presented within "Black Art: In The Absence Of Light," when what we see within the film are a collective of world class talents and creators whose names should be as easily recognizable as their European counterparts. Of course, we know of Jean-Michel Basquiat or Gordon Parks but those are just two Black figures when the world is, at the very least, aware of White artists from a variety of eras and genres, and no one even has to be an art aficionado to have heard of Monet, Picasso, and/or a Da Vinci. To that end, I should have known about David Driskell, Faith Ringgold or Kerry James Marshall and more.
When everything is said and done, I feel that if "Black Art: In The Absence Of Light" is asking anything at all of us as viewers, it is pushing us to question where do we expect to see Black people in the world? Or even more pointedly, as Black people, where do we expect to see ourselves in a world designed for Whiteness and even then, why do we have these expectations? Are we only meant to be seen in the field of athletics, on stage holding a microphone or as a headline or chalk outline?
When it is predicated that we are only to be seen in specific places and space, if any at all, then that enforced fallacy becomes a certain reality...even when it defies logic. For instance, logically, I knew as a child that Black people existed all over the world but I vividly remember that when I saw my first British Black person on television, that was the moment I realized that we really did exist beyond America and Africa. I needed to see that image in order to help myself see us. As a life long rock music fan, I remember when I first saw the images of the members of the bands Fishbone and Living Colour, Black men making up Black bands creating the music that Black people are not supposed to play, despite the fact that Black people invented it. Regardless, I needed to see those images in order to help myself see us.
Over and over again while watching Pollard's film, I saw the images I needed to see in order help myself see us, to help myself to see the world of Blackness that is not overtly seen, acknowledged and recognized in a world of Whiteness. Much like the film's subtitle and the artists the film celebrates, Blackness in its totality, complexity, variety and nuances feel to operate in the absence of light, and for now, Pollard's film is that light designed to present a reality that we are fooled into thinking does not exist.
Thanks to Pollard's film which introduced me to a host of Black artists, and furthermore, Black historians and educators, Black curators and collectors, Black writers and journalists, now I know of their work and for that, I am exceedingly grateful to this film for expanding my consciousness, perception of myself and my own sense of what Blackness is and can be. Again, logically, I know that there are Black artists and that Black art exists. But when one does not actually see it, the brain is fooled into somehow thinking that it does not exist. This is why representation matters so powerfully for if we can see it, yes...we can be it!
Sam Pollard's "Black Art: In The Absence Of Light" is a testament to the continued and ever evolving renaissance of the art world and canon as created by Black hands, hearts, minds and souls. It is a lushly executed experience that invites as it provokes, enriches as it engages you in mental debates with yourself and what you once felt to be valid, and deftly informs of how much truly exists even when the proverbial spotlight is completely turned away.
I gently urge you to seek out this film upon your streaming platforms, bask in its superbly warm glow...and be illuminated!!
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